


Sherlock Hogwarts AU (The Chamber of Secrets)

by Englands_Scones



Series: Sherlock Holmes Harry Potter AU [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gryffindor John, Gryffindor Mary, Gryffindor Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-11 11:50:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12934668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Englands_Scones/pseuds/Englands_Scones
Summary: The Andersons were so and hideous that summer that all Sherlock Holmes wanted was to get back to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But just as he's packing his bags, Sherlock receives a warning from a strange, impish creature named Dobby who says that if Sherlock Holmes returns to Hogwarts, disaster will strike. And strike it does. For in Sherlock's second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor, Gilderoy Lockhart, a spirit named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girl's bathroom, and the unwanted attentions of John Watson's younger sister, Molly. But each of these seem minor annoyances when the real trouble begins, and someone - or something - starts turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Sebastian Moran, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects.... Sherlock Holmes himself!





	1. The Worst Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at number four, Scotland Yard. Mr. Philip Anderson had been woken in the early hours of the morning by a loud, hooting noise from his nephew Sherlock’s room.

“Third time this week!” he roared across the table. “If you can’t control that owl, it’ll have to go!”

Sherlock tried, yet again, to explain. “She’s bored,” he said. “She’s used to flying around outside. If I could just let her out at night —”

“Do I look stupid?” snarled Uncle Philip, a bit of fried egg dangling from his beard. Sherlock decided not to comment. “I know what’ll happen if that owl’s let out.”

He exchanged dark looks with his wife, Sally.

Sherlock tried to argue back but his words were drowned by a long, loud belch from the Anderson's son, Charles. 

“I want more bacon.”

“There’s more in the frying pan, sweetums,” said Aunt Sally, turning misty eyes on her thin son. “We must build you up while we’ve got the chance. . . . I don’t like the sound of that school food. . . .”

“Nonsense, Sally, I never went hungry when I was at Smeltings,” said Uncle Philip. “Charles gets enough, don’t you, son?”

Charles, who was thin like a weasel, grinned and turned to Sherlock.

“Pass the frying pan.”

“You’ve forgotten the magic word,” said Sherlock irritably. The effect of this simple sentence on the rest of the family was incredible: Charles gasped and fell off his chair with a crash that shook the whole kitchen; Mrs. Anderson gave a small scream and clapped her hands to her mouth; Mr. Anderson jumped to his feet, veins throbbing in his temples.

“I meant ‘please’!” said Sherlock quickly. “I didn’t mean —”

“WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU,” thundered his uncle, spraying spit over the table, “ABOUT SAYING THE ‘M’ WORD IN OUR HOUSE, FREAK?”

“But I —”

“HOW DARE YOU THREATEN CHARLES!” roared Uncle Philip, pounding the table with his fist. He looked livid.

“I just —”

“I WARNED YOU! I WILL NOT TOLERATE MENTION OF YOUR ABNORMALITY UNDER THIS ROOF!”

Sherlock stared from his purple-faced uncle to his pale aunt, who was trying to heave Charles to his feet. 

“All right,” said Sherlock, “all right . . .”

Uncle Philip sat back down, breathing like a winded rhinoceros and watching Sherlock closely out of the corners of his small, sharp eyes.

Ever since Sherlock had come home for the summer holidays, Uncle Philip had been treating him like a bomb that might go off at any moment, because Sherlock Holmes wasn’t a normal boy. As a matter of fact, he was as not normal as it is possible to be. Sherlock Holmes was a wizard — a wizard fresh from his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And if the Andersons were unhappy to have him back for the holidays, it was nothing to how Sherlock felt.

He missed Hogwarts so much it was like having a constant stomachache. He missed the castle, with its secret passageways and ghosts, his classes (though perhaps not Snape, the Potions master), the mail arriving by owl, eating banquets in the Great Hall, sleeping in his four-poster bed in the tower dormitory, visiting the gamekeeper, Hagrid, in his cabin next to the Forbidden Forest in the grounds, and, especially, Quidditch, the most popular sport in the wizarding world (six tall goal posts, four flying balls, and fourteen players on broomsticks).

All Sherlock’s spellbooks, his wand, robes, cauldron, and top-of-the-line Nimbus Two Thousand broomstick had been locked in a cupboard under the stairs by Uncle Philip the instant Sherlock had come home. What did the Andersons care if Sherlock lost his place on the House Quidditch team because he hadn’t practiced all summer?

What was it to the Andersons if Sherlock went back to school without any of his homework done? The Andersons were what wizards called Muggles (not a drop of magical blood in their veins), and as far as they were concerned, having a wizard in the family was a matter of deepest shame. Uncle Philip had even padlocked Sherlock’s owl, Hedwig, inside her cage, to stop her from carrying messages to anyone in the wizarding world.

Sherlock looked nothing like the rest of the family. Uncle Philip was cold and sallow-faced, with an small brown beard; Aunt Sally was thin and black; Charles was brunette, pale, and shark-like. Sherlock, on the other hand, was tall and thin, with brilliant blue eyes and a mop of dark brown hair. He always wore a scarf and black jacket, and on his forehead was a thin, lightning-shaped scar.

It was this scar that made Sherlock so particularly unusual, even for a wizard. This scar was the only hint of Sherlock’s very mysterious past, of the reason he had been left on the Anderson's doorstep eleven years before.

At the age of one year old, Sherlock had somehow survived a curse from the greatest Dark sorcerer of all time, Lord Voldemort, whose name most witches and wizards still feared to speak. Sherlock’s parents had died in Voldemort’s attack, but Sherlock had escaped with his lightning scar, and somehow — nobody understood why — Voldemort’s powers had been destroyed the instant he had failed to kill Sherlock.

So Sherlock had been brought up by his dead mother’s sister and her husband. He had spent ten years with the Andersons, never understanding why he kept making odd things happen without meaning to, believing the Anderson's story that he had got his scar in the car crash that had killed his parents.

And then, exactly a year ago, Hogwarts had written to Sherlock, and the whole story had come out. Sherlock had taken up his place at wizard school, where he and his scar were famous . . . but now the school year was over, and he was back with the Andersons for the summer, back to being treated like a dog that had rolled in something smelly.

The Andersons hadn’t even remembered that today happened to be Sherlock’s twelfth birthday. Of course, his hopes hadn’t been high; they’d never given him a real present, let alone a cake — but to ignore it completely . . .

At that moment, Uncle Philip cleared his throat importantly and said, “Now, as we all know, today is a very important day.”

Sherlock looked up, hardly daring to believe it.

“This could well be the day I make the biggest deal of my career,” said Uncle Philip.

Sherlock went back to his toast. _Of course,_ he thought bitterly, _Uncle Philip was talking about the stupid dinner party._ He’d been talking of nothing else for two weeks. Some rich builder and his wife were coming to dinner and Uncle Philip was hoping to get a huge order from him (Uncle Philip’s company made drills).

“I think we should run through the schedule one more time,” said Uncle Philip. “We should all be in position at eight o’clock. Sally, you will be — ?”

“In the lounge,” said Aunt Sally promptly, “waiting to welcome them graciously to our home.”

“Good, good. And Charles?”

“I’ll be waiting to open the door.” Charles put on a foul, simpering smile. “May I take your coats, Mr. and Mrs. Mason?”

“They’ll love him!” cried Aunt Sally rapturously. 

“Excellent, Charles,” said Uncle Vernon. Then he rounded on Sherlock. “And you?”

“I’ll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I’m not there,” said Sherlock tonelessly.

“Exactly,” said Uncle Philip nastily. “I will lead them into the lounge, introduce you, Sally, and pour them drinks. At eight-fifteen —”

“I’ll announce dinner,” said Aunt Sally.

“And, Charles, you’ll say —”

“May I take you through to the dining room, Mrs. Mason?” said Charles, offering his thin arm to an invisible woman.

“My perfect little gentleman!” sniffed Aunt Sally.

“And you?” said Uncle Vernon viciously to Sherlock.

“I’ll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I’m not there,” said Sherlock dully.

“Precisely. Now, we should aim to get in a few good compliments at dinner. Sally, any ideas?”

_“Philip tells me you’re a wonderful golfer, Mr. Mason. . . . Do tell me where you bought your dress, Mrs. Mason. . . .”_

“Perfect . . . Charles?”

_“How about — ‘We had to write an essay about our hero at school, Mr. Mason, and I wrote about you.’ ”_

This was too much for both Aunt Sally and Sherlock. Aunt Sally burst into tears and hugged her son, while Sherlock ducked under the table so they wouldn’t see him laughing.

“And you, boy?”

Sherlock fought to keep his face straight as he emerged.

“I’ll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I’m not there,” he said.

“Too right, you will,” said Uncle Philip forcefully. “The Masons don’t know anything about you and it’s going to stay that way. When dinner’s over, you take Mrs. Mason back to the lounge for coffee, Sally, and I’ll bring the subject around to drills. With any luck, I’ll have the deal signed and sealed before the news at ten. We’ll be shopping for a vacation home in Majorca this time tomorrow.”

Sherlock couldn’t feel too excited about this. He didn’t think the Andersons would like him any better in Majorca than they did in Scotland Yard.

“Right — I’m off into town to pick up the dinner jackets for Charles and me. And you,” he snarled at Sherlock. “You stay out of your aunt’s way while she’s cleaning.”

Sherlock left through the back door. It was a brilliant, sunny day. He crossed the lawn, slumped down on the garden bench, and sang under his breath: _“Happy birthday to me . . . happy birthday to me . . .”_

No cards, no presents, and he would be spending the evening pretending not to exist. He gazed miserably into the hedge. He had never felt so lonely. More than anything else at Hogwarts, more even than playing Quidditch, Sherlock missed his best friends, John Watson and Mary Morstan. They, however, didn’t seem to be missing him at all. Neither of them had written to him all summer, even though John had said he was going to ask Sherlock to come and stay.

Countless times, Sherlock had been on the point of unlocking Hedwig’s cage by magic and sending her to John and Mary with a letter, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Underage wizards weren’t allowed to use magic outside of school. Sherlock hadn’t told the Andersons this; he knew it was only their terror that he might turn them all into dung beetles that stopped them from locking him in the cupboard under the stairs with his wand and broomstick. For the first couple of weeks back, Sherlock had enjoyed muttering nonsense words under his breath and watching Charles tearing out of the room as fast as his skinny legs would carry him. But the long silence from John and Mary had made Sherlock feel so cut off from the magical world that even taunting Charles had lost its appeal — and now John and Mary had forgotten his birthday.

What wouldn’t he give now for a message from Hogwarts? From any witch or wizard? He’d almost be glad of a sight of his archenemy, Sebastian Moran, just to be sure it hadn’t all been a dream. . . . Not that his whole year at Hogwarts had been fun. At the very end of last term, Sherlock had come face-to-face with none other than Lord Voldemort himself. Voldemort might be a ruin of his former self, but he was still terrifying, still cunning, still determined to regain power. Sherlock had slipped through Voldemort’s clutches for a second time, but it had been a narrow escape, and even now, weeks later, Harry kept waking in the night, drenched in cold sweat, wondering where Voldemort was now, remembering his livid face, his wide, mad eyes —

Sherlock suddenly sat bolt upright on the garden bench. He had been staring absent-mindedly into the hedge — and the hedge was staring back. Two enormous green eyes had appeared among the leaves. Sherlock jumped to his feet just as a jeering voice floated across the lawn.

“I know what day it is,” sang Charles, striding toward him. 

The huge eyes blinked and vanished.

“What?” said Sherlock, not taking his eyes off the spot where they had been.

“I know what day it is,” Charles repeated, coming right up to him.

“Well done,” said Sherlock. “So you’ve finally learned the days of the week.”

“Today’s your birthday,” sneered Charles. “How come you haven’t got any cards? Haven’t you even got friends at that freak place?”

“Better not let your mum hear you talking about my school,” said Sherlock coolly.

Charles hitched up his trousers, which were slipping down his thin bottom.

“Why’re you staring at the hedge?” he said suspiciously.

“I’m trying to decide what would be the best spell to set it on fire,” said Sherlock.

Charles stumbled backward at once, a look of panic on his thin face.

“You c-can’t — Dad told you you’re not to do m-magic — he said he’ll chuck you out of the house — and you haven’t got anywhere else to go — you haven’t got any friends to take you —”

 _“Jiggery pokery!”_ said Sherlock in a fierce voice. _“Hocus pocus — squiggly wiggly —”_

“MUUUUUUM!” howled Charles, tripping over his feet as he dashed back toward the house. “MUUUUM! He’s doing _you know what!_ ”

Sherlock paid dearly for his moment of fun. As neither Charles nor the hedge was in any way hurt, Aunt Sally knew he hadn’t really done magic, but he still had to duck as she aimed a heavy blow at his head with the soapy frying pan. Then she gave him work to do, with the promise he wouldn’t eat again until he’d finished.

While lolled around watching and eating ice cream, Sherlock cleaned the windows, washed the car, mowed the lawn, trimmed the flowerbeds, pruned and watered the roses, and repainted the garden bench. The sun blazed overhead, burning the back of his neck. Sherlock knew he shouldn’t have risen to Charles' bait, but Charles had said the very thing Sherlock had been thinking himself . . . maybe he didn’t have any friends at Hogwarts. . . .

Wish they could see famous Sherlock Holmes now, he thought savagely as he spread manure on the flower beds, his back aching, sweat running down his face.

It was half past seven in the evening when at last, exhausted, he heard Aunt Sally calling him.

“Get in here! And walk on the newspaper!” Sherlock moved gladly into the shade of the gleaming kitchen. On top of the fridge stood tonight’s pudding: a huge mound of whipped cream and sugared violets. A loin of roast pork was sizzling in the oven.

“Eat quickly! The Masons will be here soon!” snapped Aunt Sally, pointing to two slices of bread and a lump of cheese on the kitchen table. She was already wearing a salmon-pink cocktail dress.

Sherlock washed his hands and bolted down his pitiful supper. The moment he had finished, Aunt Sally whisked away his plate. “Upstairs! Hurry!” 

As he passed the door to the living room, Sherlock caught a glimpse of Uncle Philip and Charles in bow ties and dinner jackets. He had only just reached the upstairs landing when the doorbell rang and Uncle Philip’s furious face appeared at the foot of the stairs. “Remember, boy — _one sound_ —”

Sherlock crossed to his bedroom on tiptoe, slipped inside, closed the door, and turned to collapse on his bed.

The trouble was, there was already someone sitting on it.


	2. Dobby's Warning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock managed not to shout out, but it was a close thing. The little creature on the bed had large, bat-like ears and bulging green eyes the size of tennis balls. Sherlock knew instantly that this was what had been watching him out of the garden hedge that morning.

As they stared at each other, Sherlock heard Charles' voice from the hall. 

“May I take your coats, Mr. and Mrs. Mason?”

The creature slipped off the bed and bowed so low that the end of its long, thin nose touched the carpet. Sherlock noticed that it was wearing what looked like an old pillowcase, with rips for arm-and-leg-holes. Obviously a sign of lowliness and servitude.

“Er — hello,” said Sherlock nervously.

“Sherlock Holmes!” said the creature in a high-pitched voice Sherlock was _sure_ would carry down the stairs. “So long has Dobby wanted to meet you, sir . . . Such an honor it is. . . .” 

“Th-thank you,” said Sherlock, edging along the wall and sinking into his desk chair, next to Hedwig, who was asleep in her large cage. He wanted to ask, “What are you?” but thought it would sound too rude, so instead he said, “Who are you?”

“Dobby Culverton Smith, sir. Just Dobby, if you please. Dobby the house-elf,” said the creature.

“Oh — really?” said Sherlock. “Er — I don’t want to be rude or anything, but — this isn’t a great time for me to have a house-elf in my bedroom.”

Aunt Sally’s high, false laugh sounded from the living room.

The elf hung his head.

“Not that I’m not pleased to meet you,” said Sherlock quickly, “but, er, is there any particular reason you’re here?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” said Dobby earnestly. “Dobby has come to tell you, sir . . . it is difficult, sir . . . Dobby wonders where to begin. . . .”

“Sit down,” said Sherlock politely, pointing at the bed.

To his horror, the elf burst into tears — very noisy tears.

“S-sit down!” he wailed. “Never . . . never ever . . .”

Sherlock thought he heard the voices downstairs falter.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I didn’t mean to offend you or anything —”

“Offend Dobby!” choked the elf. “Dobby has never been asked to sit down by a wizard — like an equal —”

Sherlock, trying to say “Shh!” and look comforting at the same time, ushered Dobby back onto the bed where he sat hiccoughing, looking like a large and very ugly doll. At last he managed to control himself, and sat with his great eyes fixed on Sherlock in an expression of watery adoration. “You can’t have met many decent wizards,” said Sherlock, trying to cheer him up.

Dobby shook his head. Then, without warning, he leapt up and started banging his head furiously on the window, shouting, “Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!”

“Don’t — what are you doing?” Sherlock hissed, springing up and pulling Dobby back onto the bed — Hedwig had woken up with a particularly loud screech and was beating her wings wildly against the bars of her cage.

“Dobby had to punish himself, sir,” said the elf, who had gone slightly cross-eyed. “Dobby almost spoke ill of his family, sir. . . .”

“Your family?”

“The wizard family Dobby serves, sir. . . . Dobby is a house-elf — bound to serve one house and one family forever. . . .”

“Do they know you’re here?” asked Sherlock curiously.

Dobby shuddered.

“Oh, no, sir, no . . . Dobby will have to punish himself most grievously for coming to see you, sir. Dobby will have to shut his ears in the oven door for this. If they ever knew, sir —”

“But won’t they notice if you shut your ears in the oven door?”

“Dobby doubts it, sir. Dobby is always having to punish himself for something, sir. They lets Dobby get on with it, sir. Sometimes they reminds me to do extra punishments. . .”

“But why don’t you leave? Escape?”

“A house-elf must be set free, sir. And the family will never set Dobby free . . . Dobby will serve the family until he dies, sir. . . .” 

Sherlock stared. “And I thought I had it bad staying here for another four weeks,” he said. “This makes the Andersons sound almost human. Can’t anyone help you? Can’t I?”

Almost at once, Sherlock wished he hadn’t spoken. Dobby dissolved again into wails of gratitude.

“Please,” Sherlock whispered frantically, “please be quiet. If the Andersons hear anything, if they know you’re here —”

“Sherlock Holmes asks if he can help Dobby . . . Dobby has heard of your greatness, sir, but of your goodness, Dobby never knew. . . .”

Sherlock, who was feeling distinctly hot in the face, said, “Whatever you’ve heard about my greatness is a load of rubbish. I’m not even top of my year at Hogwarts; that’s Mary, she —” But he stopped quickly, because thinking about Mary was painful.

“Sherlock Holmes is humble and modest,” said Dobby reverently, his orb-like eyes aglow. “Sherlock Holmes speaks not of his triumph over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named —”

“Voldemort?” said Sherlock.

Dobby clapped his hands over his bat ears and moaned, “Ah, speak not the name, sir! Speak not the name!”

“Sorry,” said Sherlock quickly. “I know lots of people don’t like it. My friend John —” He stopped again. Thinking about John was painful, too.

Dobby leaned toward Sherlock, his eyes wide as headlights. “Dobby heard tell,” he said hoarsely, “that Sherlock Holmes met the Dark Lord for a second time, just weeks ago. . . that Sherlock Holmes escaped _yet again_.”

Sherlock nodded and Dobby’s eyes suddenly shone with tears.

“Ah, sir,” he gasped, dabbing his face with a corner of the grubby pillowcase he was wearing. “Sherlock Holmes is valiant and bold! He has braved so many dangers already! But Dobby has come to protect Sherlock Holmes, to warn him, even if he _does_ have to shut his ears in the oven door later. . . . _Sherlock Holmes must not go back to Hogwarts_.”

There was a silence broken only by the chink of knives and forks from downstairs and the distant rumble of Uncle Philip’s voice.

“W-what?” Sherlock stammered. “But I’ve got to go back — term starts on September first. It’s all that’s keeping me going. You don’t know what it’s like here. I don’t belong here. I belong in your world — at Hogwarts.”

“No, no, no,” squeaked Dobby, shaking his head so hard his ears flapped. “Sherlock Holmes must stay where he is safe. He is too great, too good, to lose. If Sherlock Holmes goes back to Hogwarts, he will be in mortal danger.”

“Why?” said Sherlock in surprise.

“There is a plot, Sherlock Holmes. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year,” whispered Dobby, suddenly trembling all over. “Dobby has known it for months, sir. Sherlock Holmes _must not_ put himself in peril. He is too important, sir!”

“What terrible things?” said Sherlock at once. “Who’s plotting them?”

Dobby made a funny choking noise and then banged his head frantically against the wall.

“All right!” cried Sherlock, grabbing the elf’s arm to stop him. “You can’t tell me. I understand. But why are you warning me?” A sudden, unpleasant thought struck him. “Hang on — this hasn’t got anything to do with Vol — sorry — with _You-Know-Who,_ has it? You could just shake or nod,” he added hastily as Dobby’s head tilted worryingly close to the wall again.

Slowly, Dobby shook his head.

“Not — not He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, sir —”

But Dobby’s eyes were wide and he seemed to be trying to give Sherlock a hint. Sherlock, however, was completely lost.

“He hasn’t got a brother, has he?” Dobby shook his head, his eyes wider than ever. “Well then, I can’t think who else would have a chance of making horrible things happen at Hogwarts,” said Sherlock. “I mean, there’s Dumbledore, for one thing — you know who Dumbledore is, don’t you?”

Dobby bowed his head. “Albus Dumbledore is the greatest headmaster Hogwarts has ever had. Dobby knows it, sir. Dobby has heard Dumbledore’s powers rival those of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named at the height of his strength. But, sir” — Dobby’s voice dropped to an urgent whisper — “there are powers Dumbledore doesn’t . . . powers no decent wizard . . .”

And before Sherlock could stop him, Dobby bounded off the bed, seized Sherlock’s desk lamp, and started beating himself around the head with earsplitting yelps. A sudden silence fell downstairs. Two seconds later Sherlock, heart thudding madly, heard Uncle Philip coming into the hall, calling, “Charles must have left his television on again, the little tyke!”

“Quick! In the closet!” hissed Sherlock, stuffing Dobby in, shutting the door, and flinging himself onto the bed just as the door handle turned. 

“What — the — devil — are — you — doing?” said Uncle Philip through gritted teeth, his face horribly close to Sherlock’s. “You’ve just ruined the punch line of my Japanese golfer joke. . . . One more sound and you’ll wish you’d never been born, boy!”

He stomped flat-footed from the room.

Shaking, Sherlock let Dobby out of the closet. “See what it’s like here?” he said. “See why I’ve got to go back to Hogwarts? It’s the only place I’ve got — well, I think I’ve got friends.”

“Friends who don’t even write to Sherlock Holmes?” said Dobby slyly.

“How do you know my friends haven’t been writing to me?”

Dobby shuffled his feet.

“Sherlock Holmes mustn’t be angry with Dobby. Dobby did it for the best —”

“Have you been stopping my letters?”

“Dobby has them here, sir,” said the elf. Stepping nimbly out of Sherlock’s reach, he pulled a thick wad of envelopes from the inside of the pillowcase he was wearing. Sherlock could make out Mary’s neat writing, John’s untidy scrawl, and even a scribble that looked as though it was from the Hogwarts gamekeeper, Hagrid. Dobby blinked anxiously up at Sherlock.

“Sherlock Holmes mustn’t be angry. . . . Dobby hoped . . . if Sherlock Holmes thought his friends had forgotten him . . . Sherlock Holmes might not want to go back to school, sir. . . .”

Sherlock wasn’t listening. He made a grab for the letters, but Dobby jumped out of reach.

“Sherlock Holmes will have them, sir, if he gives Dobby his word that he will not return to Hogwarts. Ah, sir, this is a danger you must not face! Say you won’t go back, sir!”

“No,” said Sherlock angrily. “Give me my friends’ letters!”

“Then Sherlock Holmes leaves Dobby no choice,” said the elf sadly. Before Sherlock could move, Dobby had darted to the bedroom door, pulled it open, and sprinted down the stairs.

Mouth dry, stomach lurching, Sherlock sprang after him, trying not to make a sound. He jumped the last six steps, landing catlike on the hall carpet, looking around for Dobby. From the dining room he heard Uncle Philip saying, “. . . tell Sally that very funny story about those American plumbers, Mr. Mason. She’s been dying to hear . . .”

Sherlock ran up the hall into the kitchen and felt his stomach disappear.

Aunt Sally’s masterpiece of a pudding, the mountain of cream and sugared violets, was floating up near the ceiling. On top of a cupboard in the corner crouched Dobby.

“No,” croaked Sherlock. “Please . . . they’ll kill me. . . .”

“Sherlock Holmes must say he’s not going back to school —”

“Dobby . . . please . . .”

“Say it, sir —”

“I can’t —”

Dobby gave him a tragic look.

“Then Dobby must do it, sir, for Sherlock Holmes’ own good.”

The pudding fell to the floor with a heart-stopping crash. Cream splattered the windows and walls as the dish shattered. With a crack like a whip, Dobby vanished.

There were screams from the dining room and Uncle Philip burst into the kitchen to find Sherlock, rigid with shock, covered from head to foot in Aunt Sally’s pudding.

At first, it looked as though Uncle Philip would manage to gloss the whole thing over. _(“Just our nephew — very disturbed — meeting strangers upsets him, so we kept him upstairs. . . .”)_ He shooed the shocked Masons back into the dining room, promised Sherlock he would flay him to within an inch of his life when the Masons had left, and handed him a mop. Aunt Sally dug some ice cream out of the freezer and Sherlock, still shaking, started scrubbing the kitchen clean.

Uncle Philip might still have been able to make his deal — if it hadn’t been for the owl.

Aunt Sally was just passing around a box of after-dinner mints when a huge barn owl swooped through the dining room window, dropped a letter on Mrs. Mason’s head, and swooped out again. Mrs. Mason screamed like a banshee and ran from the house shouting about lunatics. Mr. Mason stayed just long enough to tell the Andersons that his wife was mortally afraid of birds of all shapes and sizes, and to ask whether this was their idea of a joke.

Sherlock stood in the kitchen, clutching the mop for support, as Uncle Philip advanced on him, a demonic glint in his eyes.

“Read it!” he hissed evilly, brandishing the letter the owl had delivered. “Go on — read it!”

Sherlock took it. It did not contain birthday greetings.

 _Dear Mr. Holmes,_  
_We have received intelligence that a Hover Charm was_  
_used at your place of residence this evening at twelve minutes_  
_past nine._  
_As you know, underage wizards are not permitted to perform_  
_spells outside school, and further spellwork on your_  
_part may lead to expulsion from said school (Decree for the_  
_Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, Paragraph_  
_C)._  
_We would also ask you to remember that any magical_  
_activity that risks notice by members of the non-magical_  
_community (Muggles) is a serious offense under section 13_  
_of the International Confederation of Warlocks’ Statute of_  
_Secrecy._  
_Enjoy your holidays!_  
_Yours sincerely,_  
_Mafalda Hopkirk_  
IMPROPER USE OF MAGIC OFFICE  
_Ministry of Magic_

Sherlock looked up from the letter and gulped.

“You didn’t tell us you weren’t allowed to use magic outside school,” said Uncle Philip, a mad gleam dancing in his eyes. “Forgot to mention it. . . . Slipped your mind, I daresay. . . .”

He was bearing down on Sherlock like a great dinosaur, all his teeth bared. “Well, I’ve got news for you, boy. . . . I’m locking you up. . . . You’re never going back to that school . . . never . . . and if you try and magic yourself out — they’ll expel you!” And laughing like a maniac, he dragged Sherlock back upstairs.

Uncle Philip was as bad as his word. The following morning, he paid a man to fit bars on Sherlock’s window. He himself fitted a cat-flap in the bedroom door, so that small amounts of food could be pushed inside three times a day. They let Sherlock out to use the bathroom morning and evening. Otherwise, he was locked in his room around the clock.

Three days later, the Andersons were showing no sign of relenting, and Sherlock couldn’t see any way out of his situation. He lay on his bed watching the sun sinking behind the bars on the window and wondered miserably what was going to happen to him. What was the good of magicking himself out of his room if Hogwarts would expel him for doing it? Yet life at Scotland Yard had reached an all-time low. Now that the Andersons knew they weren’t going to wake up as fruit bats, he had lost his only weapon. Dobby might have saved Sherlock from horrible happenings at Hogwarts, but the way things were going, he’d probably starve to death anyway.

The cat-flap rattled and Aunt Sally’s hand appeared, pushing a bowl of canned soup into the room. Sherlock, whose insides were aching with hunger, jumped off his bed and seized it. The soup was stone-cold, but he drank half of it in one gulp. Then he crossed the room to Hedwig’s cage and tipped the soggy vegetables at the bottom of the bowl into her empty food tray. She ruffled her feathers and gave him a look of deep disgust. “It’s no good turning your beak up at it — that’s all we’ve got,” said Sherlock grimly.

He put the empty bowl back on the floor next to the cat-flap and lay back down on the bed, somehow even hungrier than he had been before the soup. Supposing he was still alive in another four weeks, what would happen if he didn’t turn up at Hogwarts? Would someone be sent to see why he hadn’t come back? Would they be able to make the  
Andersons let him go? The room was growing dark. Exhausted, stomach rumbling, mind spinning over the same unanswerable questions, Sherlockfell into an uneasy sleep.

He dreamed that he was on show in a zoo, with a card reading underage wizard attached to his cage. People goggled through the bars at him as he lay, starving and weak, on a bed of straw. He saw Dobby’s face in the crowd and shouted out, asking for help, but Dobby called, “Sherlock Holmes is safe there, sir!” and vanished. Then the Andersons appeared and Charles rattled the bars of the cage, laughing at him.

“Stop it,” Sherlock muttered as the rattling pounded in his sore head. “Leave me alone . . . cut it out . . . I’m trying to sleep. . . .”

He opened his eyes. Moonlight was shining through the bars on the window. And someone was goggling through the bars at him: a short, blonde, blue-eyed someone.

John Watson was outside Sherlock’s window.


	3. The Burrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “John!” breathed Sherlock, creeping to the window and pushing it up so they could talk through the bars. “John, how did you — What the — ?”

Sherlock’s mouth fell open as the full impact of what he was seeing hit him. John was leaning out of the back window of an old turquoise car, which was parked in midair. Grinning at Sherlock from the front seats were Fred and George, John’s elder twin brothers.

“All right, Sherlock?” asked George.

“What’s been going on?” said John. “Why haven’t you been answering my letters? I’ve asked you to stay about twelve times, and then Dad came home and said you’d got an official warning for using magic in front of Muggles —”

“It wasn’t me — and how did he know?”

“He works for the Ministry,” said John. “You know we’re not supposed to do spells outside school —” 

“You should talk,” said Sherlock, staring at the floating car.

“Oh, this doesn’t count,” said John. “We’re only borrowing this. It’s Dad’s, we didn’t enchant it. But doing magic in front of those Muggles you live with —”

“I told you, I didn’t — but it’ll take too long to explain now — look, can you tell them at Hogwarts that the Andersons have locked me up and won’t let me come back, and obviously I can’t magic myself out, because the Ministry’ll think that’s the second spell I’ve done in three days, so —”

“Stop gibbering,” said John. “We’ve come to take you home with us.”

“But you can’t magic me out either —”

“We don’t need to,” said John, jerking his head toward the front seat and grinning. “You forget who I’ve got with me.” 

“Tie that around the bars,” said Fred, throwing the end of a rope to Sherlock.

“If the Andersons wake up, I’m dead,” said Sherlock as he tied the rope tightly around a bar and Fred revved up the car.

“Don’t worry,” said Fred, “and stand back.”

Sherlock moved back into the shadows next to Hedwig, who seemed to have realized how important this was and kept still and silent. The car revved louder and louder and suddenly, with a crunching noise, the bars were pulled clean out of the window as Fred drove straight up in the air. Sherlock ran back to the window to see the bars dangling a few feet above the ground. Panting, John hoisted them up into the car. Sherlock listened anxiously, but there was no sound from the Andersons’ bedroom.

When the bars were safely in the back seat with John, Fred reversed as close as possible to Sherlock’s window.

“Get in,” John said.

“But all my Hogwarts stuff — my wand — my broomstick —”  
“Where is it?”

“Locked in the cupboard under the stairs, and I can’t get out of this room —”

“No problem,” said George from the front passenger seat. “Out of the way, Sherlock.”

Fred and George climbed catlike through the window into Sherlock’s room. _You had to hand it to them,_ thought Sherlock, as George took an ordinary hairpin from his pocket and started to pick the lock.

“A lot of wizards think it’s a waste of time, knowing this sort of Muggle trick,” said Fred, “but we feel they’re skills worth learning, even if they are a bit slow.”

There was a small click and the door swung open.

“So — we’ll get your trunk — you grab anything you need from your room and hand it out to John,” whispered George. 

“Watch out for the bottom stair — it creaks,” Sherlock whispered back as the twins disappeared onto the dark landing.

Sherlock dashed around his room, collecting his things and passing them out of the window to John. Then he went to help Fred and George heave his trunk up the stairs. Sherlock heard Uncle Uncle Philip cough.

At last, panting, they reached the landing, then carried the trunk through Sherlock’s room to the open window. Fred climbed back into the car to pull with John, and Sherlock and George pushed from the bedroom side. Inch by inch, the trunk slid through the window.

Uncle Philip coughed again. 

“A bit more,” panted Fred, who was pulling from inside the car. “One good push —”

Sherlock and George threw their shoulders against the trunk and it slid out of the window into the back seat of the car.

“Okay, let’s go,” George whispered.

But as Harry climbed onto the windowsill there came a sudden loud screech from behind him, followed immediately by the thunder of Uncle Philip’s voice.

“THAT RUDDY OWL!”

“I’ve forgotten Hedwig!”

Sherlock tore back across the room as the landing light clicked on — he snatched up Hedwig’s cage, dashed to the window, and passed it out to John. He was scrambling back onto the chest of drawers when Uncle Philip hammered on the unlocked door — and it crashed open.

For a split second, Uncle Philip stood framed in the doorway; then he let out a bellow like an angry triceratops and dived at Sherlock, grabbing him by the ankle. John, Fred, and George seized Sherlock’s arms and pulled as hard as they could.

“Sally!” roared Uncle Vernon. “He’s getting away! THE FREAK'S GETTING AWAY!”

But the Watsons gave a gigantic tug and Sherlock’s leg slid out of Uncle Philip’s grasp — Sherlock was in the car — he’d slammed the  
door shut — “Put your foot down, Fred!” yelled John, and the car shot suddenly toward the moon.

Sherlock couldn’t believe it — he was free. He rolled down the window, the night air whipping his hair, and looked back at the shrinking rooftops of Scotland Yard. Uncle Philip, Aunt Sally, and Charles were all hanging, dumbstruck, out of Sherlock’s window.

“See you next summer!” Sherlock yelled.

The Watsons roared with laughter and Sherlock settled back in his seat, grinning from ear to ear.

“Let Hedwig out,” he told John. “She can fly behind us. She hasn’t had a chance to stretch her wings for ages.”

George handed the hairpin to John and, a moment later, Hedwig soared joyfully out of the window to glide alongside them like a ghost.

“So — what’s the story, Sherlock?” said John impatiently. “What’s been happening?”

Sherlock told them all about Dobby, the warning he’d given Sherlock and the fiasco of the violet pudding. There was a long, shocked silence when he had finished.

“Very fishy,” said Fred finally.

“Definitely dodgy,” agreed George. “So he wouldn’t even tell you who’s supposed to be plotting all this stuff?”

“I don’t think he could,” said Sherlock. “I told you, every time he got close to letting something slip, he started banging his head against the wall.”

He saw Fred and George look at each other.

“What, you think he was lying to me?” said Sherlock.

“Well,” said Fred, “put it this way — house-elves have got powerful magic of their own, but they can’t usually use it without their master’s permission. I reckon old Dobby was sent to stop you coming back to Hogwarts. Someone’s idea of a joke. Can you think of anyone at school with a grudge against you?”

“Yes,” said Sherlock and John together, instantly.

“Sebastian Moran,” Sherlock explained. “He hates me.”

“Sebastian Moran?” said George, turning around. “Not Lord Moran's son?”

“Must be, it’s not a very common name, is it?” said Sherlock.

“Why?”

“I’ve heard Dad talking about him,” said George. “He was a big supporter of You-Know-Who.”

“And when You-Know-Who disappeared,” said Fred, craning around to look at Sherlock, “Lord Moran came back saying he’d never meant any of it. Load of dung — Dad reckons he was right in You-Know-Who’s inner circle.”

Sherlock had heard these rumors about Moran’s family before, and they didn’t surprise him at all. Moran made Charles Anderson look like a kind, thoughtful, and sensitive boy.

“I don’t know whether the Moran's own a house-elf. . . .” said Sherlock.

“Well, whoever owns him will be an old wizarding family, and they’ll be rich,” said Fred.

“Yeah, Mum’s always wishing we had a house-elf to do the ironing,” said George. “But all we’ve got is a lousy old ghoul in the attic and gnomes all over the garden. House-elves come with big old manors and castles and places like that; you wouldn’t catch one in our house. . . .”

Sherlock was silent. Judging by the fact that Sebastian Moran usually had the best of everything, his family was rolling in wizard gold; he could just see Moran strutting around a large manor house. Sending the family servant to stop Sherlock from going back to Hogwarts also sounded exactly like the sort of thing Moran would do. Had Sherlock been stupid to take Dobby seriously?

“I’m glad we came to get you, anyway,” said John. “I was getting really worried when you didn’t answer any of my letters. I thought it was Errol’s fault at first —”

“Who’s Errol?”

“Our owl. He’s ancient. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d collapsed on a delivery. So then I tried to borrow Hermes —”

“Who?”

“The owl Mum and Dad bought Harry when ahe was made prefect,” said Fred from the front.

“But Harry wouldn’t lend him to me,” said John. “Said she needed him.”

“Harry’s been acting very oddly this summer,” said George, frowning. “And she has been sending a lot of letters and spending a load of time shut up in her room. . . . I mean, there’s only so many times you can polish a prefect badge. . . . You’re driving too far west, Fred,” he added, pointing at a compass on the dashboard.

Fred twiddled the steering wheel.

“So, does your dad know you’ve got the car?” said Sherlock, guessing the answer.

“Er, no,” said John, “he had to work tonight. Hopefully we’ll be able to get it back in the garage without Mum noticing we flew it.”

“What does your dad do at the Ministry of Magic, anyway?”

“He works in the most boring department,” said John. “The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office.” 

“The what?”

“It’s all to do with bewitching things that are Muggle-made, you know, in case they end up back in a Muggle shop or house. Like, last year, some old witch died and her tea set was sold to an antiques shop. This Muggle woman bought it, took it home, and tried to serve her friends tea in it. It was a nightmare — Dad was working overtime for weeks.”

“What happened?”

“The teapot went berserk and squirted boiling tea all over the place and one man ended up in the hospital with the sugar tongs clamped to his nose. Dad was going frantic — it’s only him and an old warlock called Perkins in the office — and they had to do Memory Charms and all sorts of stuff to cover it up —”

“But your dad — this car —”

Fred laughed. “Yeah, Dad’s crazy about everything to do with Muggles; our shed’s full of Muggle stuff. He takes it apart, puts spells on it, and puts it back together again. If he raided our house he’d have to put himself under arrest. It drives Mum mad.”

“That’s the main road,” said George, peering down through the windshield. “We’ll be there in ten minutes. . . . Just as well, it’s getting light. . . .”

A faint pinkish glow was visible along the horizon to the east. Fred brought the car lower, and Sherlock saw a dark patchwork of fields and clumps of trees.

“We’re a little way outside the village,” said George. “Ottery St. Catchpole.”

Lower and lower went the flying car. The edge of a brilliant red sun was now gleaming through the trees. 

“Touchdown!” said Fred as, with a slight bump, they hit the ground. They had landed next to a tumbledown garage in a small yard, and Sherlock looked out for the first time at John’s house.

It looked as though it had once been a large stone pigpen, but extra rooms had been added here and there until it was several stories high and so crooked it looked as though it were held up by magic (which, Sherlock reminded himself, it probably was). Four or five chimneys were perched on top of the red roof. A lopsided sign stuck in the ground near the entrance read, _the burrow_. Around the front door lay a jumble of rubber boots and a very rusty cauldron. Several fat brown chickens were pecking their way around  
the yard.

“It’s not much,” said John.

“It’s wonderful,” said Sherlock happily, thinking of Scotland Yard.

They got out of the car.

“Now, we’ll go upstairs really quietly,” said Fred, “and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast. Then, John, you come bounding downstairs going, ‘Mum, look who turned up in the night!’ and she’ll be all pleased to see Sherlock and no one need ever know we flew the car.”

“Right,” said John. “Come on, Sherlock, I sleep at the — at the top —”

John had gone a nasty greenish color, his eyes fixed on the house. The other three wheeled around.

Mrs. Watson was marching across the yard, scattering chickens, and for a short, plump, kind-faced woman, it was remarkable how much she looked like a saber-toothed tiger.

“Ah,” said Fred. 

“Oh, dear,” said George.

Mrs. Watson came to a halt in front of them, her hands on her hips, staring from one guilty face to the next. She was wearing a flowered apron with a wand sticking out of the pocket.  
“So,” she said.

“ ’Morning, Mum,” said George, in what he clearly thought was a jaunty, winning voice.

“Have you any idea how worried I’ve been?” said Mrs. Watson in a deadly whisper.

“Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to —”

All three of Mrs. Watson’s sons were taller than she was, but they cowered as her rage broke over them.

_“Beds empty! No note! Car gone — could have crashed — out of my mind with worry — did you care? — never, as long as I’ve lived — you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Harry —”_

“Perfect Hary,” muttered Fred.

 _“YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF HARRY’S BOOK!”_ yelled Mrs. Watson, prodding a finger in Fred’s chest. _“You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job —”_

It seemed to go on for hours. Mrs. Watson had shouted herself hoarse before she turned on Sherlock, who backed away.

“I’m very pleased to see you, Sherlock, dear,” she said. “Come in and have some breakfast.”

She turned and walked back into the house and Sherlock, after a nervous glance at John, who nodded encouragingly, followed her.

The kitchen was small and rather cramped. There was a scrubbed wooden table and chairs in the middle, and Sherlock sat down on the edge of his seat, looking around. He had never been in a wizard house before. The clock on the wall opposite him had only one hand and no numbers at all. Written around the edge were things like Time to make tea, Time to feed the chickens, and You’re late. Books were stacked three deep on the mantelpiece, books with titles like _Charm Your Own Cheese, Enchantment in Baking, and One Minute Feasts — It’s Magic!_ And unless Sherlock’s ears were deceiving him, the old radio next to the sink had just announced that coming up was _“Witching Hour, with the popular singing sorceress, Celestina Warbeck.”_

Mrs. Watson was clattering around, cooking breakfast a little haphazardly, throwing dirty looks at her sons as she threw sausages into the frying pan. Every now and then she muttered things like _“don’t know what you were thinking of,”_ and _“never would have believed it.”_

“I don’t blame you, dear,” she assured Sherlock, tipping eight or nine sausages onto his plate. “Arthur and I have been worried about you, too. Just last night we were saying we’d come and get you ourselves if you hadn’t written back to John by Friday. But really” (she was now adding three fried eggs to his plate), “flying an illegal car halfway across the country — anyone could have seen you —” She flicked her wand casually at the dishes in the sink, which began to clean themselves, clinking gently in the background.

“It was cloudy, Mum!” said Fred.

“You keep your mouth closed while you’re eating!” Mrs. Watson snapped.

“They were starving him, Mum!” said George. 

“And you!” said Mrs. Watson, but it was with a slightly softened expression that she started cutting Harry bread and buttering it for him.

At that moment there was a diversion in the form of a small, brunette figure in a long nightdress, who appeared in the kitchen, gave a small squeal, and ran out again.

“Molly,” said John in an undertone to Sherlock. “My sister. She’s been talking about you all summer.”

“Yeah, she’ll be wanting your autograph, Sherlock,” Fred said with a grin, but he caught his mother’s eye and bent his face over his plate without another word. Nothing more was said until all four plates were clean, which took a surprisingly short time.

“Blimey, I’m tired,” yawned Fred, setting down his knife and fork at last. “I think I’ll go to bed and —”

“You will not,” snapped Mrs. Watson. “It’s your own fault you’ve been up all night. You’re going to de-gnome the garden for me; they’re getting completely out of hand again —”

“Oh, Mum —”

“And you two,” she said, glaring at John and Fred. “You can go up to bed, dear,” she added to Sherlock. “You didn’t ask them to fly that wretched car —”

But Sherlock, who felt wide awake, said quickly, “I’ll help John. I’ve never seen a de-gnoming —”

“That’s very sweet of you, dear, but it’s dull work,” said Mrs. Watson. “Now, let’s see what Lockhart’s got to say on the subject —”

And she pulled a heavy book from the stack on the mantelpiece.

George groaned.

“Mum, we know how to de-gnome a garden —” 

Sherlock looked at the cover of Mrs. Watson’s book. Written across it in fancy gold letters were the words _Gilderoy Lockhart’s Guide to Household Pests._ There was a big photograph on the front of a very good-looking wizard with wavy blond hair and bright blue eyes. As always in the wizarding world, the photograph was moving; the wizard, who Sherlock supposed was Gilderoy Lockhart, kept winking cheekily up at them all. Mrs. Watson beamed down at him.

“Oh, he is marvelous,” she said. “He knows his household pests, all right, it’s a wonderful book. . . .” Sherlock noticed Mrs. Watson's pupils dilate as she stared at the book. 

“Mum fancies him,” said Fred, in a very audible whisper. Sherlock rolled his eyes. 

“Don’t be so ridiculous, Fred,” said Mrs. Watson, her cheeks rather pink. “All right, if you think you know better than Lockhart, you can go and get on with it, and woe betide you if there’s a single gnome in that garden when I come out to inspect it.”

Yawning and grumbling, the Watsons slouched outside with Sherlock behind them. The garden was large, and in Sherlock’s eyes, exactly what a garden should be. The Andersons wouldn’t have liked it — there were plenty of weeds, and the grass needed cutting — but there were gnarled trees all around the walls, plants Sherlock had  
never seen spilling from every flower bed, and a big green pond full of frogs.

“Muggles have garden gnomes, too, you know,” Sherlock told John as they crossed the lawn.

“Yeah, I’ve seen those things they think are gnomes,” said John, bent double with his head in a peony bush, “like fat little Father Christmases with fishing rods. . . .” There was a violent scuffling noise, the peony bush shuddered, and John straightened up. “This is a gnome,” he said grimly. 

“Gerroff me! Gerroff me!” squealed the gnome.

It was certainly nothing like Father Christmas. It was small and leathery looking, with a large, knobby, bald head exactly like a potato. John held it at arm’s length as it kicked out at him with its horny little feet; he grasped it around the ankles and turned it upside down. “This is what you have to do,” he said. He raised the gnome above his head (“Gerroff me!”) and started to swing it in great circles like a lasso. Seeing the shocked look on Sherlock’s face, John added, “It doesn’t hurt them — you’ve just got to make them really dizzy so they can’t find their way back to the gnomeholes.”

He let go of the gnome’s ankles: It flew twenty feet into the air and landed with a thud in the field over the hedge.

“Pitiful,” said Fred. “I bet I can get mine beyond that stump.”

Sherlock learned quickly not to feel too sorry for the gnomes. He decided just to drop the first one he caught over the hedge, but the gnome, sensing weakness, sank its razor-sharp teeth into Sherlock’s finger and he had a hard job shaking it off — until —

“Wow, Sherlock — that must’ve been fifty feet. . . .”

The air was soon thick with flying gnomes.

“See, they’re not too bright,” said George, seizing five or six gnomes at once. “The moment they know the de-gnoming’s going on they storm up to have a look. You’d think they’d have learned by now just to stay put.”

Soon, the crowd of gnomes in the field started walking away in a straggling line, their little shoulders hunched. “They’ll be back,” said John as they watched the gnomes disappear into the hedge on the other side of the field. “They love it here. . . . Dad’s too soft with them; he thinks they’re funny. . . .” 

Just then, the front door slammed. 

“He’s back!” said George. “Dad’s home!”

They hurried through the garden and back into the house. Mr. Watson was slumped in a kitchen chair with his glasses off and his eyes closed. He was a thin man, going bald, but the little hair he had was as blonde as any of his children’s. He was wearing long green robes, which were dusty and travel-worn.

“What a night,” he mumbled, groping for the teapot as they all sat down around him. “Nine raids. Nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hex on me when I had my back turned. . . .”

Mr. Watson took a long gulp of tea and sighed.

“Find anything, Dad?” said Fred eagerly.

“All I got were a few shrinking door keys and a biting kettle,” yawned Mr. Watson. “There was some pretty nasty stuff that wasn’t my department, though. Mortlake was taken away for questioning about some extremely odd ferrets, but that’s the Committee on Experimental Charms, thank goodness. . . .”

“Why would anyone bother making door keys shrink?” said George.

“Just Muggle-baiting,” sighed Mr. Watson. “Sell them a key that keeps shrinking to nothing so they can never find it when they need it. . . . Of course, it’s very hard to convict anyone because no Muggle would admit their key keeps shrinking — they’ll insist they just keep losing it. Bless them, they’ll go to any lengths to ignore magic, even if it’s staring them in the face. . . . But the things our lot have taken to enchanting, you wouldn’t believe —”

“LIKE CARS, FOR INSTANCE?”

Mrs. Watson had appeared, holding a long poker like a sword.

Mr. Watson’s eyes jerked open. He stared guiltily at his wife. “C-cars, Molly, dear?”  


“Yes, Arthur, cars,” said Mrs. Watson, her eyes flashing. “Imagine a wizard buying a rusty old car and telling his wife all he wanted to do with it was take it apart to see how it worked, while really he was enchanting it to make it fly.” 

Mr. Watson blinked.

“Well, dear, I think you’ll find that he would be quite within the law to do that, even if — er — he maybe would have done better to, um, tell his wife the truth. . . . There’s a loophole in the law, you’ll find. . . . As long as he wasn’t intending to fly the car, the fact that the car could fly wouldn’t —”

“Arthur Watson, you made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law!” shouted Mrs. Watson. “Just so you could carry on tinkering with all that Muggle rubbish in your shed! And for your information, Sherlock arrived this morning in the car you weren’t intending to fly!”

“Sherlock?” said Mr. Watson blankly. “Sherlock who?”

He looked around, saw Sherlock, and jumped.

“Good lord, is it Sherlock Holmes? Very pleased to meet you, John’s told us so much about —”

“Your sons flew that car to Sherlock’s house and back last night!” shouted Mrs. Watson. “What have you got to say about that, eh?”

“Did you really?” said Mr. Watson eagerly. “Did it go all right? I — I mean,” he faltered as sparks flew from Mrs. Watson’s eyes, “that — that was very wrong, boys — very wrong indeed. . . .”

“Let’s leave them to it,” John muttered to Sherlock as Mrs. Watson swelled like a bullfrog. “Come on, I’ll show you my bedroom.”

They slipped out of the kitchen and down a narrow passageway to an uneven staircase, which wound its way, zigzagging up through the house. On the third landing, a door stood ajar. Sherlock just caught sight of a pair of bright brown eyes staring at him before it closed with a snap.

“Molly,” said John. “You don’t know how weird it is for her to be this shy. She never shuts up normally —”

They climbed two more flights until they reached a door with peeling paint and a small plaque on it, saying John’s room.

Sherlock stepped in, his head almost touching the sloping ceiling, and blinked. It was like walking into a furnace: Nearly everything in John’s room seemed to be a violent shade of orange: the bedspread, the walls, even the ceiling. Then Sherlock realized that John had covered nearly every inch of the shabby wallpaper with posters of the same seven witches and wizards, all wearing bright orange robes, carrying broomsticks, and waving energetically.

“Your Quidditch team?” said Sherlock.

“The Chudley Cannons,” said John, pointing at the orange bedspread, which was emblazoned with two giant black C’s and a speeding cannonball. “Ninth in the league.”

John’s school spellbooks were stacked untidily in a corner, next to a pile of comics that all seemed to feature _The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle._ John’s magic wand was lying on top of a fish tank full of frog spawn on the windowsill, next to his fat gray rat, Stamford who was snoozing in a patch of sun.

Sherlock stepped over a pack of Self-Shuffling playing cards on the floor and looked out of the tiny window. In the field far below he could see a gang of gnomes sneaking one by one back through the Watson’s hedge. Then he turned to look at John, who was watching him almost nervously, as though waiting for his opinion.

“It’s a bit small,” said John quickly. “Not like that room you had with the Muggles. And I’m right underneath the ghoul in the attic; he’s always banging on the pipes and groaning. . . .”

But Sherlock, grinning widely, said, “This is the best house I’ve ever been in.” 

John’s ears went pink.


End file.
